Hey, Firstly hello! I'm new around here, and although been visiting this website for a couple of years now, I've only just got round to signing up!

Anyhow, I'm looking to start a very small home studio, hopefully one day it will be full of expensive and wonderful gear, currently though I will have to cope with whatever will get me by. I'm looking for a mixer, basic and cheap because my budget is next to nothing and is going to continue being so for quite a while! So I need something to keep me going in the meantime and I was wondering if anyone has any feedback on TAPCO? Specifically the 120 (I'm going to need 4 mic/line inputs at least) as it is the cheapest I've found that looks remotely useful.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Cheers,

Pyxi

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~Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.~

Hi Pyxi,

First of all you should consider whether you need a mixer at all? In most home studios now there's no need for a mixer with mixing being done inside the box. You'd be better looking for a good quality interface with 4 pre-amps and mix in your DAW.

Of course, a good interface with 4 pre-amps will be more than the £60 for a Tapco 120. But to be honest, £60 isn't going to get you much in the way of quality.

It all depends to what you intend to do with your studio. What music do you want to make and why do you need 4 pre-amps I guess should be the first question?

Hi, Thanks for replying,

Yeh I would ultimately prefer to use an interface rather than a mixer but it was the price range that swayed me for now.

I'm plannign on doing various different things with my studio, including live recordings which is why I want at least 4 pre-amps.

As for the quality for £60, I know I can't be expecting anything brilliant but was more wondering if its worth getting in the time being til I can really afford something a lot better? Or is it best to wait a while longer for a better budget?

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~Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.~

I've always been of the opinion that unless you really NEED something now you're much better hanging on until you can afford something better. Here's why getting a £60 mixer isn't a good idea and why waiting until you can afford a decent audio interface is:

The Tapco 120 isn't going to have especially good quality preamps. Infact, the whole unit isn't going to be especially good quality, hence the £60 price tag.

The mixer is only a stereo mixer so however you record from it you're only going to get a stereo input to your recorder/DAW which isn't ideal if you intend to record 4 channels simultaneously.

You will still need a sound card (more money) if you intend to take audio from your mixer into a computer. You COULD use the built in inputs and outputs on your computer the conversions are awful and will further degrade the quality of your music.

You can't really mix on it anyway as you will want to do most of your mixing in your DAW so the EQs and pans are probably useless to you (also probably not as good sounding as some of the free plugins you can get off the net).

Having an audio interface will allow you to record tracks simultaneously onto individual tracks in your DAW. You will also be able to use the full capabilities of your DAW and output the signal through your audio interface. The converters will be much higher quality than the built in converters on your computer. The components will also be much better than those in the Tapco provided you are willing to pay for the quality (just search this forum for interface recommendations, there are hundreds of threads).

£200 will get you a good interface. Definitely worth saving the money in my mind.